


Any Port

by Arsenic



Category: The Tarot Sequence - K.D. Edwards
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:08:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21752011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Just a quick character piece about Brand in the days after the attack.
Relationships: Rune & Brand
Comments: 19
Kudos: 68
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Any Port

**Author's Note:**

  * For [egelantier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/egelantier/gifts).



> Unbeta'ed due to being a treat. Hope you enjoy, treatee, thank you for the chance to write.

Brand didn’t sleep for the first seventy-two hours in The Tower’s compound. It wasn’t even The Tower that was the problem then, although, Brand hadn’t trusted him at that time, either. It was that the last time Brand had woken up, it had been to Rune naked and bleeding, curled up in a corner and rocking listlessly. The last time Brand had woken up, it had been to the fact of his utter failure to do the one thing he was bred for.

Given the choice, Brand would have never slept again.

* * *

Rune slept. Rune slept and slept and slept. No matter how many times he woke screaming he just closed his eyes afterward and went back to sleep. Three days in, Brand forced the issue. If he hadn’t, Tower was going to, and if Tower tried to touch Rune right then, Brand was going to murder everyone within reach until they put him down like a rabid dog.

He felt like one.

Rune startled and tensed under Brand’s hands, something he’d never done before. Not after nights of drinking, or while sick, or…or ever. Now, though, touch was the enemy. Brand withdrew his hands and Rune whispered, “Sorry.”

Brand shook his head, sharp, intent, unwilling to budge. “Don’t. Don’t apologize.”

It didn’t matter what it was for, Brand couldn’t hear it. Not when every drop of blood Rune had spilled, every scream torn from him was on Brand’s hands. If apologies were to be spoken, it would be by Brand. Rune had forbidden that, so here they were. 

“Is it cold?” Rune asked, his teeth chattering.

It wasn’t. It was perfectly fucking temperate. As if The Tower’s domain would ever be anything else. Brand said, “A little. I’ll grab you a sweater.”

He found one of the ones that had been supplied for his use. It was bigger than those given to Rune, would swamp him more, give him more space to breathe. Brand pulled it over Rune’s head and asked, “Better?”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Rune said. “Better.”

Brand didn’t call him on the lie.

* * *

When Brand had been seven, he’d gone through a training all companions went through around that age. Nobody knew what it was like ahead of time, though, because even acknowledging it was forbidden. The whole point of the training was that the child didn’t know it was coming, couldn’t discern it from reality.

Mind magics were used for it, which left most companions—Brand included—with a negative association with the branch. Essentially, the training was a guided meditation, twisting the young companion’s dreaming state into what seemed like reality, and took them through an instance where a slight, unintentional mistake on the part of the companion resulted in the death of or severe harm to their scion.

They were eventually brought out of the mind-manipulation, usually to see the scion in question there in the room. Rune had been there. He’d been attempting to claw the face off the servant tasked with holding him back from Brand.

Brand had barely eaten in the weeks that followed, because eating required leaving the training hall. In the end, it had taken Rune going off food, too. He simply refused to eat until Brand did. That had brought things back to some semblance of normal.

Now, though, there was no normal. Brand couldn’t wake from a training because no training had occurred, simply failure. 

Brand wished he could go back to that moment when training could take precedence, when he could hone his body as roughly and unceasingly as possible, because there was safety in the house, because Rune would be seen to. Instead, he spent the time Rune was sleeping improving fighting skills already razor-sharp, combing through Tower’s resources for skills he had not yet learned, stopping only to ensure Rune was eating and showering. 

He ate with Rune because strength was necessary, now, vital. He ate, and he forced himself to keep the food down, no matter how his body tried to rebel. He ate because Rune watched Brand when not asleep, as if keeping his eyes on Brand would mean everything was all right. Brand wasn’t willing to let him feel otherwise.

* * *

Brand was aware, underneath the barely controlled panic in himself, that they needed a plan. More than that: he was aware they needed the safety of The Tower’s protection while they made said plan, while they took the necessary steps to enact it. Which meant they would be here a while.

The Tower, noticeably, was offering shelter and food and protection. Not resources. No, those they would need to comb the Sun Estate to find, cobble together, and get creative about. Worse, Brand couldn’t do the former for Rune. He was no scion. 

The rage that powered him through the first days slowly became an ember, banked and waiting, but no longer enough to propel him through time and space, to keep him moving. He slept the only place he could: at Rune’s door, a barrier between Rune and the rest of the world, if an inert one. It was something.

At the end of the second week, Rune caught him. It was the first time since the attack Rune had woken without Brand doing the waking, so opening his eyes to find Rune sitting on the floor, watching him sleep, was a bit of a surprise. Brand said, “Hey.”

Rune drew his knees up to his chest. “Hey.”

Brand sat up, resting his back against the door and stretching his legs out. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah. I—I think I am.”

“Rune.” Brand said it softly, unsure of what he was trying to get across.

“And you’re awake.”

Brand nodded. The knowledge was bitter, but true.

“You’ve been awake.”

“I’ve been…pissed.” Brand chose the shorthand. Rune would understand everything unsaid. 

“What’s—what’s our plan?”

It helped more than Brand was comfortable admitting that Rune didn’t ask if they had a plan, or if the plan was a good one. Just what it was. So he responded honestly with, “There’s a lot of fill-in-the-blanks left.”

“Maybe I can fill a few.”

Brand caught his eye. “Kinda counting on it.”

“Oh, so you’re gonna let me out of your sight for that long?” The question was clearly meant to be flippant, but didn’t quite hit the right tone.

Brand let him have the moment. The attempt was more than enough. “Fuck no. When did I say that?”

“I felt it was implied.”

“Your feelings are dumb,” Brand told him seriously, and with gravitas.

It earned Brand the flicker of a smile. Rune inched himself forward, turning around to curl into Brand’s side. “Yeah. Yeah, they kinda are.”

Brand tucked an arm around him and for the next hour or so, let the world turn without plans or fears or feelings. Just the two of them, the world at their back.


End file.
